A blog chronicling my departure from urban life on the east coast to sheep farm and cheese making life on the west coast. Still recounting the meals I have eaten in my new setting, but with more sheep thrown into the mix.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Darts c/o Druid's Keep

This past Tuesday the team had an 'away' game. LW and I took the 43 bus down Spring Garden and realized that Northern Liberties really doesn't necessitate a cab. I put that in the GTK column (good to know). So the Druid's Keep team is in first place within our division, and we lost rather handily to them the first time we encountered them, winning only 2 out of 13 games. We were missing a few players on this particular night, but the spirits of those of us in the place were inexplicably high nonetheless. AJ came in with swagger, J. seemed to be feeling pretty good about his game, and LW was moving like Jagger. In fact, at some mid-point in the game, we were all busting moves in our area of the dart board playing space. Here you can see teammates in motion.Here you can see LW and Jack doing a little lean and shimmy. Even I broke it down, ironically of course ... but no photographs will ever prove that. Because they don't exist. But it did make me wonder why LW and I weren't going to dance clubs all the time. Kind of. Except for all the reasons why I know I don't do that, such as the fact that I cannot really dance.So Druid's Keep doesn't have a kitchen, but part of the league's covenant (not really an existing thing) is that the hosts of the games must provide some sort of snack for players. To help cover the cost, the barkeep and 'landlord' (see what I did there, I used a British term for bar owner), organized a '50/50' competition, which had to be explained to me very slowly because I had no idea what they were talking about the first time through. Basically, you pay $5 or $10 and get either a whole wingspan's worth of raffle tickets or half a span's, depending on whether you put in $5 or $10. I put in $5, but right before I did, AJ did. Here he is with his bounty.Later in the evening all the tickets were put into a pitcher and a third party (re: another patron) pulled out the winning ticket. And wouldn't you know it? It was AJ.They wanted to make sure the dog got into the photo. I liked Druid's Keep. I thought I would be scared or something. New bars in new places give me anxiety. But they had friendly dogs, a friendly bar tender and plenty of space. And a nice back patio kind of thing.Darts continued.I played three games (1001, 501 and 301) due to missing folks. I didn't exactly have the same kind of big moment that have marked my last few games, but I did hit three 20s in a row for a total of 60 in one turn, which suggests deliberate aiming ... and that is accurate; I was actually aiming. But don't tell anybody. K. and I played 301. I hit an in-shot, but too late to really matter.T. rolled in late and finished up the match with cricket.AJ was kind of forced into sharing some of his winnings with the team an buying us drinks. T. and LW. opted for whiskey, and after smelling it as it wafted past, I wanted it too. I shake my head at that desire, but it was met. Here is LW. holding three shots, one for me, and two for her? Ha. No, just one for her.Holding the shots from a distance and with a kick.I have no idea what is going on with the faces of these two, but I kind of love it.It was fun to play more. It was fun to dance and shimmy a little. And while I shouldn't have then gone with T. and LW to meet up with their division 1 buddies in Old City ('shouldn't' as far as, I could have been home by 12:30 but was instead home closer to 2), the evening was good hearted, tipsy and fun. We ended up losing six games to seven, but this was such a better showing that no one was really in a foul mood about it. LW was especially pleased with breaking the other captain's 100% record in a particular game.